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National Hurricane Center is monitoring the Southwest Caribbean

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  • A widespread area of ​​low pressure is expected to form in the southwestern Caribbean this week.
  • This low could gradually attempt to spawn a tropical depression or storm since it is barely moving.
  • The Western Caribbean is an area that has historically experienced tropical developments in November.

The final month of hurricane season is approaching, but it may not be completely calm as the southwest Caribbean is monitored for possible late-season tropical developments.

Here is the current status in the Caribbean: The National Hurricane Center (NHC) expects a widespread area of ​​low pressure to form in the area highlighted below east of Central America and south of Jamaica in a few days.

Afterwards, this low pressure area will be watched closely to see if it becomes better defined by concentrated thunderstorm activity. In this case, a tropical depression or storm could develop.

Possible tropical development would not occur until late this week or next weekend at the earliest. The next Atlantic storm is called Patty.

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Possible National Hurricane Center development area

(The possible area of ​​tropical development according to the National Hurricane Center's latest forecast is indicated by the polygon, color-coded by the probability of development over the next seven days.)

Here, this possible system could track: Currently, the NHC expects this extended low pressure area to only drift north or northeast over the next 5 to 7 days. If a named storm develops at some point, it is still too early to know what areas of land, if any, it could hit in the Caribbean's Greater Antilles.

The extensive low pressure area in combination with a separation front could produce at least locally heavy rainfall in Central America and other parts of the Caribbean, regardless of tropical developments.

The southwestern Caribbean is a typical location for late-season storm formation. The likelihood of a tropical storm forming typically continues to decrease as we enter the final month of hurricane season.

Historically, the area highlighted in yellow below, stretching from the western Caribbean to the Bahamas, as well as a separate area in the central Atlantic, had the most named storm formations in November.

On average, a storm occurs every one to two years in the last month of the hurricane season. In the last 10 years, the last storm of the season fizzled out on October 28th and as late as December 7th.

Last year there were no storms in the month of November.

But 2022 was exactly the opposite: Martin and Nicole developed into November hurricanes. Lisa also strengthened into a hurricane during the month after strengthening into a tropical storm on October 31.

N​icole ultimately hit Florida's Atlantic coast as a Category 1, making it only the fourth November hurricane to make landfall on the American mainland since the mid-19th century.

Chris Dolce has been a senior meteorologist at Weather.com for over 10 years, having started his career at The Weather Channel in the early 2000s.

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